by A. J. Wynter
Blaine’s heart jumped as he felt the unmistakable barrel of a gun pressed into his neck. “I’m going to gut you like a pig, you fucker,” a voice rasped into Blaine’s ear.
His captor wrapped a strong arm around Blaine’s neck and dragged him into the barn. A single lightbulb hung from one of the beams and even in the dim light Blaine could see that the bodies of the men on the floor weren’t those of his Brass Bonds brothers. His captor was the lone Scorpion still standing. Crater and Frankie ran into the barn, their guns trained on the last of their enemies.
“Drop your guns and kiss the wall,” the man yelled.
Blaine’s boys hesitated and Blaine croaked out, “Let him kill me.”
“Shut up!” the man yelled at Blaine.
“Make sure his death is slow and painful,” Blaine rasped and smiled.
Blaine’s guys still had their guns trained on the duo. He knew that they would follow his orders, but they would be torn about it.
Crater hesitated. But, Blaine saw Frankie straighten his posture to aim his sniper rifle at him. Blaine closed his eyes and tried to think about kissing Olivia. In that split second, he wondered how she would react when she found out that he was dead.
A shot rang out and Blaine flinched and then fell to the ground. The lifeless body of his captor pinned him down on the barnboard floor. He held his breath and wondered why he hadn’t felt the shot. Shock?
It wasn’t until Crater pulled Blaine out from under the dead Scorpion that he realized the blood covering his body was not his own. He sat up and turned to face a woman. In the melee he had forgotten all about Zeb’s informant.
She was beautiful, a small woman with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was dressed in black from head to toe, including her gloves. She expertly holstered her Glock and bent down to feel for a pulse on the man. “They’re all gone. You guys got them all. Get the hell out of here.” She pointed to the door with her gloved hand.
“Are you coming with us?” Blaine asked.
“I was never here,” she said, and backed away before disappearing out the door of the barn.
Blaine stood up and assessed the damages, but was interrupted when Scotty ran into the barn and screamed, “Tyson is fucking bleeding out. We’ve gotta get him out of here!”
They ran outside and saw Tyson lying in the gravel outside the barn. His face his gray and he was bleeding heavily from his left thigh.
“Crater, you stay with him. Who knows whether any of the Scorpions got out a distress call.” Blaine pulled out a radio and barked orders to Hammer, who had stayed back with the van. “Get the fuck over here now!” he screamed into the radio. They wrapped a belt around Tyson’s leg, and it seemed to slow the spurting blood.
“I think it’s the femoral,” Frankie whispered to Blaine.
Blaine nodded grimly and held Tyson in his arms. The black van flew down the gravel road and arrived in a cloud of dust. The boys gathered to lift Tyson into the back of the van. Blaine put his fingers to his neck and his heart sank as he realized there was no pulse.
“Get him in the van. We can’t leave him here,” Blaine whispered sadly. He knew that it was smarter to leave him there and let the authorities assume that he was one of the dead Scorpions, but he had known Tyson since he was a boy and couldn’t do that to him. They laid him in the back of the van on some cardboard, and wrapped as many towels as they could around his leg. It didn’t take long for each towel to become a saturated crimson rust color.
There was no time for sentimentality and the rest of the boys jumped into the van and they sped away from the scene of the gunfight. Blaine had known that they might not come back alive, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. He knew that he was supposed to have a tough as nails façade, and did his best to hold in his tears. He didn’t make eye contact with any of the other men in the van on the ride back to the clubhouse. None of them did. The ride was funereal as they made their way back into Torver.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – OLIVIA
Olivia drummed her fingers on the steering wheel of the civic. She had been sitting across the road from Blaine’s clubhouse for an hour trying to get the nerve to go and knock on the door. She had circled the block for two hours prior to that just getting the nerve to park outside. Baby steps, she thought, and took a huge breath. Her presence hadn’t gone unnoticed and she noticed the same faces driving by a few times, checking her out. She sat in the car and debated whether or not she was crazy for trying to get to Blaine.
The same van that had been at her house earlier that night pulled into the lot slowly, and then disappeared around the corner of the cinder block building. She assumed that Blaine was with them and tried to calm her racing heart. She sat in the car for another hour and a half. Would Blaine be angry with her for showing up at the clubhouse? What if what she was doing was dangerous? She knew that Blaine would protect her, but was she violating some code that she didn’t know about? She wished that she had more time with Blaine to know these things.
‘Holy fuck, do I want to be with someone who lives by a code anyway?’ She thought, and reached to turn the key to start the engine. She pulled her hand back and sighed. If she didn’t do this, she knew that she would regret it. She opened the door and shook out her legs that had become numb from sitting in the car for three hours.
She jogged across the street and tried to appear confident as she strode down the laneway and approached the reinforced steel door. There were two guys standing outside the door smoking weed and she slowed as she approached them.
“You lost?” The older, scarier looking one asked.
“I…I’m here to see someone,” she stammered.
“Oh yeah, and who might that be?”
“Blaine…” Olivia trailed off, realizing that she had no idea what Blaine’s last name was.
“It’s not a good night sweetheart,” the other, less scary, biker said gruffly.
“Please, I just need to talk to him for one minute.”
“Are you hard of hearing bitch?” the angry one said. “You need to learn to do what you’re told.”
Olivia’s nervousness was immediately replaced by fear. She backed up slowly. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Can you please tell him that I was here to see him?”
“I’ll be sure to let him know that the girl scouts were by,” he mocked.
Just as Olivia was about to turn to walk away, Skinny emerged from the clubhouse.
“Guitar girl!” he said as he took a pull from a cigarette.
“You know this girl?” the scary tall biker asked.
“Yes, she’s one of Blaine’s.”
One of? Olivia’s throat constricted.
“You here to see Blaine?” Skinny asked.
Olivia couldn’t speak, but she nodded her head yes.
“Come with me.” He tossed his cigarette on the ground and opened the door.
The two bikers didn’t say anything, but Olivia could feel their eyes leering as she followed Skinny into the dark and smoky clubhouse. She wrinkled her nose, it smelled like stale beer and body odor, and it was packed with leather clad drunk men.
As she followed Skinny through the crowd she felt an arm slither around her waist. A man pulled her in tightly to him and she could smell the beer and smoke on his breath. His teeth were yellowed and he had a pot belly. She tried to pull back from his vice-like grip. He was repulsive.
“What do we have here?” he slurred.
“Hey. That one’s Blaine’s,” Skinny shouted.
The yellow toothed biker released her and held up his hands. “Sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t know.”
Olivia was shaking. ‘What am I doing here? This was a mistake.’ She thought to herself.
Everyone was drunk, and there was a sombre tone to the room. She grasped Skinny’s thick forearm and pulled him in close, “What’s going on here?”
“We lost a brother today. We are celebrating his life. I guess you could say it’s a funeral of sorts.”
“W
hy is everyone so drunk?”
Skinny just laughed and continued to weave through the crowd.
She was about to turn and leave when she saw Blaine’s ponytail over the back of a leather club chair. Skinny pointed out, “There he is.”
Olivia gulped and nodded to Skinny, thanking him silently for his escort through the sea of sweaty men. As she approached Blaine she saw someone else she recognized. The girl from the restaurant, the one who had poured beer on Maddie. As Olivia moved toward Blaine through the smoky haze, the leather clad woman beat her to him and pulled him in close, hugging his face to her chest. Time slowed like it did in the movies, and Olivia stood frozen watching. Lizzie sunk down and threw one of her skinny legs over Blaine’s legs and sidled down on top of his lap in a straddle. Her hands gripped the back of the chair as she leaned in to kiss Blaine on the neck. From her vantage point, Olivia couldn’t see what Blaine’s hands, or mouth were doing, and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to. The only thing that she needed in that moment was to get the hell out of there. She turned, full of tears and anger, and rushed out of the clubhouse. She didn’t care who she ran into as she ricocheted off drunk biker’s chests. She felt a hand grab her wrist, and balled up her fist in response.
“Easy, easy.” It was Skinny. “Just wait a minute.”
Olivia stared at the fat biker and pulled herself out of his grasp. He reluctantly let her go. She could sense him following her out of the club, and nobody bothered her as she made her way out into the steamy hot summer night. When the reinforced door slammed shut beside her, she broke into a full out sprint, pulling her keys out of her purse. She jumped into the car and sped away, only to stop a few blocks away to let her emotions escape. Her hands gripped the steering wheel as she sobbed. She let the tears run down her face and didn’t bother to wipe them away. All of the emotion she felt over the past week, the attempted rape from the college boy, the loss of a romance that didn’t have the chance to blossom, all came rushing out of her.
It was 3:30 a.m. when she crept into her house as quietly as she could. She was exhausted, but wired at the same time. She turned on the shower as hot as she could get it and let her smoke-filled clothes slip to the floor. She needed to wash the smell of that place off her body. She scrubbed and sobbed until the water went cold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – BLAINE
Blaine slunk into the chair in the clubhouse. He didn’t know what Zeb planned to do with Tyson’s body or what he planned to tell his old lady. It was a sad night for the club. They should’ve been celebrating their success in taking down the top members of the Scorpions, but their celebration had turned into a memorial. He chugged two beers as soon as he got to the clubhouse and was now plowing through his tenth. He planned to drink until he couldn’t see, or feel anything.
He was sweaty, tired, and wasted. Through his beer goggles he saw Lizzy approach him seductively. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He felt her mount his lap, but didn’t have the energy to push her off. She took his arms by his wrists and tried to wrap them around her waist. Blaine rested his thick arms on her bony hips while holding a beer in each fist. She leaned in and kissed his neck. He could feel her warm breath on his neck, but it didn’t do anything for him. The sensation was not unlike a pesky mosquito buzzing around his head. Her curly hair tickled his face and kept getting caught in his lips, he tried to blow it away. His cock wasn’t stirring, and he wanted her off his lap, but was too tired to resist. He allowed Lizzie to nuzzle into his neck and slip her hands under his shirt. He took a drink of his beer over her shoulder.
Lizzie grew agitated at his lack of response and nipped him on the collarbone with her teeth. Blaine flinched and dropped his beer bottle. He grabbed Lizzie by her hips and shoved her onto the floor.
“Blaine! What the fuck?” she screamed.
“If you want to be useful you can get me another beer,” he slurred.
Lizzie grabbed onto the side of the chair and hoisted herself to her feet, wobbly in her platform boots. She brushed off her pants and fluffed up her hair.
“Fucking asshole.” She turned and walked to the beer fridge and yanked out a beer. She screwed off the cap and whipped it at him. It hit his cheek but he didn’t flinch. She wordlessly handed him the cold bottle.
Blaine drank the beer in three gulps.
“Another,” he barked.
Lizzie complied.
Blaine continued drinking until his vision went black, his chin slumped to his chest, and his beer bottle slipped from his unconscious grasp to smash on the concrete floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN – OLIVIA
October
Olivia took a depth breath. She had been staring at the envelope from the selection committee for the past five minutes. She was typically up at six a.m., but for the past two months had tossed and turned, replaying the moment when Lizzie snuggled into Blaine’s lap. She sighed and took a sip of her green tea. The moment that she’d been working toward her entire life could become reality - if she got up the nerve to open the little white envelope on the table.
She looked up as Maddie shuffled into the kitchen, home from college for the weekend. Her black eyeliner was smudged down her face and her hair looked like it could house a family of chickadees. She poured herself a cup of coffee and slumped down at the table.
“Good Night?” Olivia asked.
“Sort of,” Maddie said, and took a sip of her coffee. “Are you still obsessing over that asshole?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Olivia said, and tapped the envelope on the table. “I have bigger things to worry about.”
“Is that from the selection committee?”
Olivia didn’t answer, she just slid the envelope across the kitchen table. “You open it. I’ve been sitting here all morning trying to get up the guts to do it myself.”
Maddie picked up the envelope and stuck her finger in the corner and then paused, “I want to hear what happened that night at the clubhouse.”
“Fuck you Maddie. Why are you asking now?”
“Fuck you?” Maddie asked. “What’s gotten into you kid? A backbone? I followed you that night and when I saw that you got home safely I went home with my boss. I needed to thank him for sitting in the car all night on a sister stakeout.”
Olivia slumped in her chair. “I’m sorry. I had a shitty night. I found Blaine and when I did he was getting a lap dance from the girl that poured the beer all over you.”
Maddie sighed, “After his big speech about loving you? What a dick. I thought he was different.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not. They’re all shit. Straight laced college boys, band nerds, bikers. They’re all the same.”
“Liv. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about this sooner. I wasn’t sure that you were ready, and I didn’t want to do it over the phone from school.” Maddie had her finger stuck in the corner of the envelope and she ripped it open. “You need some good news.”
Olivia’s heart sank as she studied her sister’s face as her eyes darted across the page of the letter.
“What the fuck?” Maddie whispered under her breath. She looked up at her sister and had tears in her eyes.
Olivia grabbed the sheet of paper from her sister’s hand.
Dear Applicant,
We thank you for your application for the audition scheduled for October 30, 2018 but have found your submission to be incomplete.
There are three components to the application process and while your technical and theoretical components are strong, we did not receive a recommendation letter from your mentor. Unless we receive a recommendation by October 15th we will not be able to entertain your application.
We invite you to apply again for the 2019 auditions.
Regards,
The selection committee.
Olivia’s hands shook in anger. She was Mr. Tunbridge’s best student and he knew it. Why hadn’t he sent a recommendation? Her guts contracted like a coiled serpent and she felt
like she was going to throw up. Olivia felt a rage brewing in her like none she’d felt before. She stood up, screamed at the top of her lungs, and lifted the corner of the breakfast table tossing it, along with its contents, over and onto the floor.
Maddie’s eyes were wide as she watched the hulk version of her sister go crazy.
Olivia picked up her coffee mug and smashed it on the ceramic floor, cracking one of the dated terra cotta tiles. As suddenly as it arrived, her wave of rage subsided and she collapsed into a heap on the floor. Maddie flew to her sister’s side and wrapped her arms around her. Olivia stood up and pushed her away. She ran up the stairs and into Maddie’s room. Maddie sat on the floor in shock and then started picking up pieces of the broken mug. She righted the table and then approached her room cautiously. Olivia strode past her wearing one of Maddie’s push-up bras, a lacy tank top and tight royal blue skirt. She had the straps of Maddie’s favorite wedge sandals looped through her fingers.
“What you doing?” Maddie asked, keeping a safe distance from her enraged sister.
“I’m going to go get a letter,” Olivia seethed.
“I can’t let you do that.” Maddie blocked Olivia’s path.
“Get out of my way Maddie.”
“No.”
“Get the fuck out of my way!” Olivia screamed, her eyes wild and her hands bunched into fists. She pushed Maddie’s shoulders as hard as she could and Maddie fell to the floor, unprepared for a physical attack. Olivia appeared to have hulk-like superhuman strength.
Olivia ran past Maddie, grabbed the car keys out of the pottery bowl by the door and screeched the car out of the driveway.
Maddie sat up, and rubbed her lower back. Olivia had pushed her right into the baseboard and the bruise had already started to form. Maddie was stunned by her sister’s crazy state and frantically tried to figure out what to do next. She ran to the kitchen to find her phone, which had been one of the victims of the kitchen table incident. She flipped it over saw spiderlike cracks across the screen. She held her breath as she tried to get her phone to work. She needed help. Olivia was going to do something very bad, something that she would regret the rest of her life, and Maddie needed to stop it.